April 28, 2012

Speaking for freedom, Bob's got an old song called "I Shall Be Free." It says:

Well, my telephone rang it would not stop
It’s President Kennedy callin’ me up
He said, “My friend, Bob, what do we need to make the country grow?”
I said, “My friend, John, Brigitte Bardot
Anita Ekberg
Sophia Loren”
(Put ’em all in the same room with Ernest Borgnine!)

It's not a slow jam, but like that Obama's slow jam the other day, it got that idea that sexual stimulation is what the country needs. (Speaking of old, there's that old Woody Allen joke: "I ... interestingly had, uh, dated ... a woman in the Eisenhower Administration ... briefly ... and, uh, it was ironic to me 'cause, uh . . . 'cause I was trying to, u-u-uh, do to her what Eisenhower has been doing to the country for the last eight years.)

Bob's most famous reference to the President is in "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)":

While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked

Lest you think that was sexy-naked, the year was 1965, and the President was LBJ.

Finally, back to the subject of freedom, here's one of my favorite obscure Bob Dylan songs, from the album we listened to all the time in college, "New Morning":

If dogs run free, then why not we
Across the swooping plain?
My ears hear a symphony
Of two mules, trains and rain
The best is always yet to come
That’s what they explain to me
Just do your thing, you’ll be king
If dogs run free

Memories. 1965 was the last good year before the sudden deluge of drugs and Johnson's sudden insane deployment of Marines into South Viet Nam that summer.

I believe that Bob's Bridget Bardot, Anita Ekberg, Sophia Loren line was from 1962. Those ladies were all Europeans and therefore were allowed to exude sultry sexy personas and show off their breasts in movies.

That changed too after 1965 when we were told that we liked Twiggy's breasts instead. Someone was seriously taking drugs to think that.

But even the president of the United StatesSometimes must have to stand naked

"Lest you think that was sexy-naked, the year was 1965, and the President was LBJ."

In his recent biography of Lyndon Johnson, Flawed Giant, Robert Dallek writes, “During a private conversation with some reporters who pressed him to explain why we were in Vietnam, Johnson lost his patience. According to Arthur Goldberg, LBJ unzipped his fly, drew out his substantial organ and declared, ‘This is why!’”

Way back then, President Johnson could be confident that the reporters would not share this moment of presidential bonding with the public. Quaint questions of taste aside, it might not have struck them as news anyway. The president’s fascination with his substantial organ was an old story to the White House press corps.

I first heard of it when I was working on a profile of White House press secretary George Reedy for The Saturday Evening Post. Everybody in the press room had a glancing acquaintance with the President’s privates, which he was forever prodding and redistributing through his pants. And ambassadors calling to present their credentials sometimes had a closer acquaintance than that. It was Mr. Johnson’s occasional practice to invite new envoys for a swim in the small indoor pool built for FDR. Skinny-dipping was the long-established tradition, which allowed the President to establish genital dominance at the start of a diplomatic relationship.

I've got some collections of old Doonesbury cartoons, and in one of the the President (Carter) called Bob Dylan while the character Jimmy Thudpucker was at his house. The strip sort of made fun of Carter for being a geek who started singing some mash up of "Rolling Stone."

From the days when Doonesbury was funny, and when Dylan wouldn't have expected a phone call from the White House.

Dylan sure has been getting a lot of love lately. Not just here. I've been hearing him mentioned in the media and praised more than ever in the last few months. I was never a big fan. He is an impressive word collager, but I have a habit of not hearing the words in music. I focus on the musical part. I still don't know the words to many of my favorite songs that I have listened to for decades.

Dylan has aged well for a rock artist. He avoided the crash and burn that would be expected with his level of success. There should be an award just for that: The Survivor Award.

A deaf person I know got an award from a president. Best athlete. Or handicapped athlete, probably. He was a senior at the school in Colorado Springs at the time. Football. Nixon. Racially much darker than myself. He was older than myself and we played pool together and he couldn't hear how hard he was cracking the balls, and that was very odd because they make such a piercing sound and honestly anybody should be able to hear that. He was calm and rather slow moving it seemed but he pounded the shit out of the pool balls. He bounced pool balls right off the table a couple of times. They cracked across the floor CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! and bashed into a wall BLAM!, I turn red with embarrassment but that is silly because nobody looked. Nobody. This was at the deaf club in Denver. Off of Colfax, a very busy street, about Tejon, I think. There were about 30 people there various ages. An ambulance went by on the street directly in front of the building while we were playing and not a single person in the room showed any interest at all or appeared to notice, nobody went to the window to look. That was a very odd couple of hours.

There were a couple months in 1976 that "If Dogs Run Free" was the Dylan song for me. I was a 19-year-old Carlos Castaneda reading dope smoking pseudo hippie, hitch hiking around Europe. I was really into that song. I actually contemplated throwing my passport and backpack in a river in France and living a feral existence.

I'm fond of the reference to the vice-president in "Clothes Line Saga":

The next day everybody got upSeein’ if the clothes were dryThe dogs were barking, a neighbor passedMama, of course, she said, “Hi!”“Have you heard the news?” he said, with a grin“The Vice-President’s gone mad!”“Where?” “Downtown.” “When?” “Last night”“Hmm, say, that’s too bad!”“Well, there’s nothin’ we can do about it,” said the neighbor“It’s just somethin’ we’re gonna have to forget”“Yes, I guess so,” said MaThen she asked me if the clothes was still wet

(By the way, Althouse, clicking the "Bob Dylan" tag at the end of this post only yields this post. Seems your other Dylan posts are tagged "Dylan". It's unfortunate if your many Dylan posts-- which happen to be faves of mine-- are accidentally split into separate categories and can't all be accessed with either a "Dylan" or "Bob Dylan" tag.)

I hope that Boby Dylan uses the occasion to speak out on the innocence of George Zimmerman. I bet everyone would really respect his courage if he did that. It would be just like when he used his moral standing to speak up for Hurricane Carter.